Meanwhile, back on Earth
by Montressor
Summary: A series of bits and pieces based upon one Wizard's experience with the loss of their magic. Rated T just to be safe. May contain spoilers for the end Wizards at War depending on how you see it. Why aren't you reading the book?
1. Torn pages

A/N: Let it be noted by one and all that I do not own Wizardry, the Young Wizards series, it's not-so-basic concepts or author. Anyone who tells you differently is a liar. I do however own a few lovely acres of swamp land that a kind gentleman sold me recently. He told me that's where the _real _Brooklyn Bridge is. I believe him, because he had a nice hat.

Now on to the story

* * *

_What follows are the entries made by an anonymous Advisory wizard, into a small bound book . Most of it's contents had been torn out, leaving only this scrap to begin with_

hide them away. Somewhere safe. Whatever I become, I want to be able to remember what I once was.

I'll hide my old self. For as long as there is Time left.

But I won't stop writing.

* * *

I feel sick. Horribly sick and achy. And the news hasn't been helping me. It's a sad little world ours. Wars threatening over some countries, erupting over others. Big wars, little wars. I watched two people get into a fight today. It started out as arguing, then became yelling, and then an all out fist-flying brawl. All because the dirt on one side of a fence and trickled down in the wind to the other side, for lack of a retaining wall next to the fence. A fist fight. Over dirt. I watched it, feeling like I was back in high school, or junior high.

If I were still that age, high school, younger, I could do something. I don't know what. But I could stop this fight. I could stop the bigger ones too. Not by myself of course. But I could have helped.

I dreamt of a rolling storm clouds, that had lightening flashed in them, blindingly white, at times, ti seemed red. It was just a storm. Just weather, but in my dream, I thought they were supposed to be something else. Dogs. Dogs made out of storms.

I feel as though my insides have been removed, leaving a gaping hole. Something is missing.

But I don't know what.

I miss it, and I want it back.

* * *

I've been going to work. Just like my mother and the rest of my family always wanted. I go to work every single day that I can. I come home. I pay my bills. I watch the news. prepare to settle down, into the routine of life. I am a normal, responsible, adult. Just like they always wanted me to be.

I remember the fights I used to get into with them. An a horrible argument. I had done something, I don't remember what, but it was approved of. It was stupid, my mother had said, it was pointless, childish, illogical. "You have to learn to be responsible." she'd said. I had answered. " I am being responsible. I am responsible. " I had meant it then too. I was young. I thought it was my job to save the world and that I was going to save it. I wasn't the only one. There were others. Together we saved the world. We were superheroes, or something like that. At least we worked the same way. Secret identities as "mild-mannered" adults and kids.


	2. Knowing Better

What did we do to save it? And who were we saving it from? The Bad Guys. It seems so funny now to think about it. We were saving the world from Death. I thought, we all thought, that we were helping to , if not stop Death, slow it down. I actually believed that I could talk with creatures, that there were planets outside of our galaxy that could support life. Theoretically perhaps, but logically? Realistically?

My family was right. I was childish. I was irresponsible. I can't blame then entirely for turning me out. I suppose I must have been insane as well. I see that now. It makes sense. My family has a history of mental instability., mine just took a less sensible form. I thought I heard voices on the wind, I thought I could seriously will things to happen. I believed that my dreams actually meant something besides that I had too much pizza before bed. I believed I was, of all things, a wizard.

I know better now.

* * *

I dreamt last night of a darkness that was Nothing. Not Cold. Not Achy. Not even Numb. I couldn't even really say "it was"…anything. Because it wasn't. 

It Wasn't.

* * *

I don't really feel like writing anymore. With all that's going one in the world, all the wars that are just popping up like I could never believe possible, writing doesn't seem that important. I know, it used to once. It used to matter very much. Back when I pretended words had meaning. Back when I thought I was a wizard. But it's nothing ,really. Just lines on paper. And it is, more than anything else, a waste of time. 

So why do I keep writing? Habit I suppose.

When everything ends, it won't matter. Everything will end. Soon. It only makes sense.

I write because this is what I do. So I do it.

This is what I do.

I'd said that before, to my family, while I was crazy.

"This is what I do. This is what I am. I am responsible. "

And I thought I was. Playing make-believe. I thought myself very adult like. Back when words had meaning. Back when I heard voices in the grass. Back when I dreamed.

I have stopped dreaming.


	3. To Exist

I used to make jokes at work. People smiled, people laughed. They don't do that now. The news makes everyone nervous. Worried. Angry.

When I was crazy, I thought everything meant something. Not just words, everything. I imagined I found out the meaning to this or that, what was wrong with it, how to fix it. And I fixed it. Whenever I feel really bad, or couldn't figure something out, I thought I went outside myself , and watched from there.

* * *

I heard the word "errand" today. A child said it. For a moment, it sounded like "errantry", a code word from that Superheroes Game, for my make-believe days.

I stopped going to work. There's not really a point.

Something is missing.

* * *

I have to keep writing. I don't really know why. It's important. For some reason. 

There are words written on the back side of this front cover. A quote from Mr. Nuncle. He was my English teacher, back in high school. He's been dead years now. He believed in opposites being necessary for something to exist. That the opposites needed a middle in order "to belong." Black must have White. They both need Color. Light must have Darkness. They both needed Dimness and Dawning. Happy must have Sad. Both needed Anger, Fear, Surprise, etc. If one of the two didn't exist, the other couldn't. If the Third part was missing, the other Two could not survive. He actually believed all that. It doesn't even make any sense. Not even this I must have written. "There is Life, so there is Death."

There are other things written under it. They make even less sense. Each sentence starting with the word "Because." of all the irresponsible things. Starting a sentence with the word "Because." I really had lost my mind back then.

* * *

There are pages missing from this book. I locked them away, in a last fit of insanity. I should throw them away. Reading them is just a waste of time, keeping them without reading them a bigger waste.

* * *

It makes no sense to keep writing. 

_ Here ends the journal.  
_


	4. Because

The bombs were ready. Everywhere something was aimed to destroy the enemy. Everywhere there was one ignorant vessel for the ignorant mass stood with it's finger poised over a button. That button would end the Game. Just End it. No way to Start Over.

I got from my chair. I went outside and stood at the end of my driveway. It seemed logical enough to be outside when the end came. My end would come quicker outside than in.

I looked up at the darkness of the sky at night. It made sense to look up.

Up.

Up.

At the moon. At the darkness stretching towards the moon. My skin itched. Something was wrong. Something I could do nothing about.

It wasn't my responsibility.

A dog down the street barked. It barked again. My muscles twitched. I looked at the dog. A Bichon Frise. Approximately 20lbs in weight, 4 years in age.

Beside that dog, another came. A German Shepherd. It barked.

I felt an itch at the back of my head. My heart jumped a bit.

Another dog began barking. Then another. No one came outside. No one yelled at them to shut up. In a few moments it wouldn't matter anyway.

The itch moved into my skull, into my brain.

Something stirred.

The dogs stopped barking. Started howling. I shivered as the Something stirring went into my insides. There was an ache, numb, but unhealed. I looked up at the moon. It had a shine to it, like a halo around what little I could see. They howling stopped. Paused.

They ache didn't leave I felt like howling myself. A profoundly stupid way to spend my last moments. I sho--

The howling started again. The Bichon Frise. The German Shepherd. The Doberman. The Shelties, the Labs, the Chihuahua and all the mutts and mongrels. The sound woke up Something.

It spread, the howling sound making my nerves and bones vibrate. I could almost imagine being like them, furred and everything. Lifting a pointed muzzle to the sky. The sound of howling filled my ears, my head, my everything. I felt suddenly as stiff. I must have spent days sitting and doing nothing but waiting. And then doing nothing but nothing. I clasped my hands together, stretched my arms up and out, towards the only Light in the thick hopelessness of the Dark .The howling and the Something mixed together. I took a deep breath and let it out. And as I did, a sound left me, a low, long reverberating noise that came from somewhere I had forgotten existed. It wasn't noise, not my sound, not the sound of the dogs. Howling wasn't the right word for what any of us did. It was signing. Two different songs. But the same message.

And the I heard it. Not a Voice, a feeling, a something that resolved itself into words only so I could understand it better.

"Close your eyes."

I did. The Something threaded through my mind, repeating the words I had written in the cover. My fail safes. My final bits of hope.

"There is Life, so there is Death."

Because It exists, so do They.

Because They have Life, It has Death.

Because Death has entropy, Life has wizardry.

In my mind's eye the Darkness became rolling storm cloud. The howling, the growling, created thunder. From the clouds emerged large shapes. Their eyes flashed brilliant red and white. Blue-white fire of lightening made their teeth. Everything from the pointed muzzle to the sharp tips of their tails was muscle made out of a different kind of Darkness. The Storms Dogs had come back for the big event. As they always had since the day my great-grandmother died. The dogs howled. The Dogs howled with them.

The Something flowed, giving the Words meaning.


	5. Wizard & Not

The Wizard and the Not, as they were known to each other, sat on the bench, continually watching as buses stopped for them without actually getting on.

"So" said the Not "that's what really happened?"

"Yes" said the Wizard "for me at least. I don't know about the others."

"That's why you were in such a bad mood."

"Yes."

"And why you stopped coming over."

"Yes."

"And why we stopped--"

"Yes. " Said the Wizard sharply.

" Howling at the moon. " said the Not. "How dorkfull can you get."

The Wizard raised an eyebrow "Dorkfull?"

The Not smiled, knowing how much the Wizard was bothered by the Not's made up words.

They sat together as two more busses passed.

"What was it like?" the Not asked finally.

"What?"

"When your magic stuff went away. What was it like?"

"It was--" the Wizard began. Then stopped.

The Not felt the air between them change. In the Not's head came a series of colors, sourceless sounds, smells and sounds. The Not recognized it as the Wizard's equivalent of a hamster running on it's wheel.

"--difficult" said the Wizard at last. "You remember when we were younger. How much everyone wanted me to be normal?"

"Normal is overrated." answered the Not automatically.

"Exactly. And we used to tell them that too. You and me."

"Me and you. What about it?"

"You remember how you tried to explain to me what it was like being normal."

"You said you couldn't understand how anyone could possibly understand how anyone could stand being normal?"

"And you said that I should try for a day sometime."

"Yep."

"And now I've tried it for just over a week."

"So?" said the Not "Now that you're been normal--?"

"I understand even less. " the Wizard sighed. " how can anyone live like that? Not being able to Feel things Living, to Hear the Universe. "

"It was really that bad?"

"It was awful. It was like being deaf , dumb and blinded. It was frustrating, annoying, disgusting. It was--" the Wizard grappled. The Link gave the Not enough to understand.

"Lonely." The Not suggested. The Wizard nodded.

"Normal people aren't connected to anything but each other really. And at the time--"

"--people didn't even have each other."

"Exactly."

"But it's all better now right? I mean after everything the younger ones and all them did, things are going to get better."

"Eventually. Slowly. Yes."

The Not's head shook back and forth " I don't get it. You actually, seriously enjoy all this."

"It's what I am." said the Wizard simply.

"Oh" said the Not.

Another bus passed.

"Well," said the Not at last. "Since you were UnWizardyed for that time. The next time the Great Evil Thing shows up, I'll do the butt kicking." The Not leaned towards the Wizard " It does have a butt, right? Otherwise I'm going to have to come up with a whole nother plan." The Wizard laughed. "That's better."

The Wizard watched the next bus coming "Thank you, but I believe I'll handle your portion of 'butt-kicking' "

"Leave me out of the fun and Universe Fixing then." pouted the Not.

"I will." answered the Wizard.

The bus stopped and opened it's doors. The Wizard stood.

"Back to the Superhero Game?" asked the Not.

"It is the best game. Secret identities, coded messages.."

"Saving the world for a bunch of ungrateful, boringly normal people."

"If I only saved it for the grateful ones, it wouldn't be nearly as much fun, or rewarding. " The Wizard and the Not smiled at each other. "But first I have to go home, and write a whole mess of sentences that begin with "Because" "And" and "But." "

"Why?" asked the Not.

"Because I can" said the Wizard.


End file.
